Microsoft 365 | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

For security leaders, the inbox remains the front door for attackers. Here's why the smartest teams are adding adaptive, AI-driven protection to their cloud email security, not replacing them. Email is still the number-one attack vector for enterprises, and it is not even close. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that business email compromise alone generated $3 billion in losses in 2024 , with AI-enabled attacks accelerating the trend ( FBI IC3 Report ). The attacks that succeed today don't carry obvious malicious payloads. They rely on trust, tone, and timing; a spoofed vendor sending a "routine" invoice update, or a convincing impersonation of a CEO with an urgent request. No malware. No suspicious links. Just words, carefully chosen. Microsoft 365 is the backbone of productivity for most organizations, and Microsoft Defender and Exchange Online Protection do solid work catching known spam, malware, and co...

While working on the Transparent Tribe's vibeware research, we have encountered two distinct camps, the optimists and the skeptics. What makes the current dialogue unique is that both sides can be right at the same time. There is, however, a clear operational reason why we encounter "AI attacks" primarily on professional social media feeds rather than within our own telemetry logs. In this article, we analyze the factors explaining why Skynet is not here yet, and how, much like a shark, AI does not need to be innovative to be dangerous. LLM Architecture Bias LLMs are mathematically optimized to predict the most likely outcome, while hacking is the art of identifying the statistical anomaly. LLMs are designed to predict the most statistically probable next token. They are excellent at the average, but poor at the exceptional. A hacker, by contrast, is a practitioner of statistical anomaly, actively seeking the low-pro...

Here's what keeps me up at night. Not zero-days. Not sophisticated nation-state attacks. What worries me is the backlog. Every MSP has one. The list of security configurations that need fixing. The policies have been sitting in "report only" mode since last year. The E5 features that clients are paying for but nobody's turned on because it might break something. The app registrations with excessive permissions from three years ago that nobody's audited. The conditional access policies that need updating but keep getting pushed to next quarter. We all know this backlog exists. We tell ourselves we'll get to it. But quarters turn into years, and that backlog just grows. Meanwhile, AI attackers don't have a backlog. They have automation. Most breaches in Microsoft 365 won't start with a zero-day. They'll start with a setting that's been in "report only" for two years. Example tenant: critical Conditional Access policies exist but a...

Generative AI has quietly become a part of the SaaS ecosystem that businesses use every day. Platforms like Zoom, Slack, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce now have AI assistants. You can use these tools to do things like write summaries of meetings or perform routine tasks. A recent  survey found that 95% of U.S. businesses now use generative AI. This is a big increase from last year. But this quick growth of AI features is making security leaders worried. Sensitive information could be leaked or used in the wrong way if there aren't enough controls in place. Shadow AI and Its Far-Reaching Risks When employees use AI apps without the knowledge or approval of IT, it creates shadow AI . This is akin to the shadow IT problem of unsanctioned cloud apps, but now with AI services. The unauthorized use of AI platforms can unknowingly expose organizations to data privacy issues, compliance violations, and even disinformation risks. We're already seeing these risks play out. Samsung engin...

As data breaches and cyber threats become the norm rather than the exception, the imperative to fortify cybersecurity measures has become critical. Microsoft 365, the leading enterprise productivity platform, is at the heart of many organizations' daily operations — and therefore is a prime target for cyber-attackers. Ransomware remains one of the most aggressive cyber threats to organizations. A reported 76% of businesses have experienced at least one attack within the last year , the results of which yielded disrupted operations, substantial financial losses, and reputational damage. For SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365, the threat is even more pronounced due to the vast amounts of sensitive data processed and stored daily.  Below, we will investigate the cybersecurity landscape surrounding Microsoft 365. As we do so, we will examine the prevalence of ransomware threats and identify many commonly implemented and robust strategies that are proven to enhance cyber resilience an...

In today's hyper-connected digital world, the importance of robust data protection is undeniable. For businesses of all sizes, the need to safeguard critical information has moved from a secondary IT concern to a boardroom-level issue. This heightened urgency is driven by the increasing frequency and complexity of cyberattacks, particularly ransomware, which have the potential to cripple operations, cause catastrophic financial losses, and in some cases, irreparably damage a company's reputation. Ransomware attacks are no longer isolated incidents affecting just a handful of organizations. They have evolved into sophisticated, organized, and relentless operations targeting businesses of every scale and across every industry. With the rise in these attacks, the need for an effective ransomware recovery strategy has become one of the most pressing issues in data protection — and central to this conversation is Microsoft 365, which plays a pivotal role in the day-to-day operations of mi...

In our current tech landscape, dealing with cybersecurity incidents like ransomware and other disasters is unavoidable. To keep your business running, you need to be able to take disruptions and cyberattacks in stride. This means being able to not just bounce back from an outage or data loss situation — but bounce forward each time. This is at the heart of data resilience. Read on to learn more about how to keep your organization moving forward, no matter what comes your way. Stay Ahead of the Curve As cybersecurity threats and ransomware attacks continue to increase and evolve, it's critical that you stay ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping up with cybersecurity trends. Cyber threats are evolving quickly into more sinister and dangerous variants, and they won't wait for your defenses to catch up. Some of the top cybersecurity and data protection trends this year include using zero trust principles like multi-factor authentication (MFA) systems, passkeys, and password-less...